‘Varisu’ fails to shatter ‘Mersal’ lifetime collection in US

Thalapathy Vijay’s ‘Varisu’ has crossed $1-million mark at the US box office, but the movie has failed to beat the actor’s previous records in North America.

As per the trade trackers, ‘Varisu’ has earned $1,139,795 at the US box office till Monday (January 30). Over the weekend, the movie earned $9,076 at the US box office.

The movie was released to a huge hype on January 10. It had earned $148,136 on the first day. For the next six days, ‘Varisu’ did exceptionally well, thereby giving hopes of setting new benchmarks. In its extended first week alone, the movie had amassed $9,23,755 at the US box office.

However, the business started dipping thereafter, thereby crashing the hopes of setting new records in North America.

Vijay’s top-performing film in US is ‘Mersal’ which had minted $1,830,866 in its lifetime. Owing to controversies and good word-of-mouth, this flick had managed to do well in North America. However, ‘Varisu’ had an average word-of-mouth.

‘Thunivu’ Outperforms ‘Varisu’

Notably, ‘Thunivu’, which was released alongside ‘Varisu’, has performed slightly better than Vijay-starrer. Till date, Ajith’s film has collected $1,216,833.

However, Ajith’s movie has earned lesser than Vijay’s movie at the global box office. So far, ‘Varisu’ has raked in 279.28 crore at the worldwide box office, according to Bollywood portal Koimoi. In India alone, it has collected Rs 193.28 crore in 20 days. On the other hand, ‘Thunivu’ has earned Rs 190.52 crore worldwide out of which it raked in Rs 136.52 crore from India.

Thus proving that Vijay is the biggest Tamil actors among his contemporaries when it comes box office. 

Top Performing Tamil Movies in USThe list is topped by Mani Ratnam’s magnim opus ‘Ponniyin Selvan – Part 1’. The multi-starrer flick, which had big names like Vikram, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Karthi and Trisha in the cast, was released in September 2022. The historical fiction, based on Kalki’s novel of the same name, is considered as the pride of the Tamil cinema. This factor had helped the flick to attract Tamils in the US to theatres in big numbers.

It made a business of 6,700,372 in its lifetime at the US box office.

Rajinikanth’s ‘2.0’ and ‘Kabali’ are in the next two places. While the former, which was released in 2017, minted $5,509,317, the latter, which saw the light of the day in 2018, raked in $4,585,808 in its lifetime.

Kamal Haasan’s ‘Vikram’ is in fourth place in the list of highest-grossing Tamil films in the US by earning Rs $2,858,359. The action thriller directed by Lokesh Kanagaraj was released last year and set the box office on fire across the globe.

It is followed by Rajinikanth’s 2019 film ‘Petta’. Karthik Subbaraj’s flick had earned $2,553,065 in its lifetime.

Rajinikanth’s ‘Endhiran’ is in the sixth place by raking in $1,549,053. His ‘Kaala’ is at seventh position with a lifetime earning of $1,913,110. It is followed by ‘Mersal ($1,830,866), Rajini’s ‘Darbar’ ($1,679,271) and Suriya’s ’24’ ($1,471,997).

Interestingly, Rajinikanth’s movies have dominated the top 10 list as his six flicks are part of it. In fact, it is only his movies have consistently performed in the US attracting viewers across the language barrier.

Also read: ‘Thalapathy 67’: Check out the full cast and crew of Vijay, Katrina-starrer